What are ontologies and what can they be used for?

The potential of ontologies in organising and structuring knowledge and improving the reporting and communicating of behaviour change interventions will be introduced by Professor Marie Johnston and Professor Janna Hastings. We will ensure plenty of interaction both in the session and on a discussion board – we hope you can join us.

Speaker bios:

Marie Johnston , Ph.D., B.Sc., HonFBPsS., FRSE., F.Med.Sci., FAcSS, FEHPS, FRCP.Edin., FBSPHN is Emeritus Professor in Health Psychology in the College of Life Sciences and Medicine at the University of Aberdeen. Professor Johnston conducts research on behaviour and behaviour change in the context of health, illness and healthcare with an emphasis on improving measurement, research design and reporting and developing implementable behaviour change interventions based on evidence and theory. She has over 500 publications and her research has been supported by research council, government and charitable sources. Interventions she was involved in developing and evaluating have been implemented in NHS Scotland.

Janna Hastings, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Medical Knowledge and Decision Support, University of Zurich and University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Janna has worked on ontology research and development for more than a decade across multiple disciplines. She develops the Mental Functioning Ontology and related projects, and until 2015 she was ontology lead and project coordinator for the ChEBI chemical ontology, during which time she also worked on related biological ontologies. She holds a PhD in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Computer Science and an MA in Philosophy.

Helpful links:

Project website

Publications

Open Science Framework

Github